1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an amusement ride which employs fluid dynamics to accelerate an object, especially a participant, in a vehicle that forms part of a track-mounded ride.
2. Description of the Related Art
The traditional roller coaster utilizes a chain drive to pull one or more vehicles to the highest point on the track and thereby create significant potential energy. Gravity then accelerates the vehicle downhill, exchanging potential energy for kinetic energy. Sufficient kinetic energy is recovered to permit the vehicle to ascend a subsequent incline, thereby converting kinetic energy into potential energy. Energy losses, of course, dictate that each subsequent hill be smaller. Curves are also incorporated in the track, ultimately creating a closed course, viz., a course where the end of the track is connected to the beginning of the track. The chain drive is necessarily limited in a capability for acceleration and, consequently, moves the vehicle at quite slow speeds.
A more modern version of the roller coaster utilizes a series of linear induction motors to create the initial acceleration for a roller coaster. One such ride has been produced by Premier Rides for Six Flags Them Parks Inc. and is termed the BATMAN & ROBIN ride. The present inventor could, however, locate no patent for coasters which are initially accelerated by linear induction motors. Many linear induction motors are required to accelerate the vehicle, and such motors are quite susceptible to failure.
The only roller coaster of which the present inventor is aware which is powered by a pressurized gas is the Tubular Roller Coaster of U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462. Though, as the name of this device implies, the entire movement of the vehicle is within a tube, which substantially detracts from the desired excitement participants on roller coasters derive from being in an open environment where such participants can feel the air rush past them and visibly perceive speed and changes in elevation. Although U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462 does not explicitly state that air is continuously injected into the tube in order to push the vehicle, this is strongly suggested by the drawing and the language in the disclosure which designates "a blower 5 which propels the wheeled containers/capsules 6 along the tubular route 1 . . . "
A similar suggestion of continuous air movement applies to the improved pneumatic car-truck described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 64,401. That patent states, in pertinent part, " . . . the truck . . . can be propelled by the air currents in the pneumatic tube in the usual manner."
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,615 utilizes pressurized gas vertically to eject a vehicle from a tube. Gravity eventually stops the vehicle so that it falls along a guide cable back into the tube, where compression of air decelerates the vehicle at a rate controlled by pressure relief valves. Just as in the case of U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462, however, the participant is completely enclosed by the vehicle. Furthermore, no track is contemplated by the invention of U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,615.